A Stonehenge: Winter Archaeology Walk will take place on Saturday, 15 February 2014 from 2:00pm to 4.30pm. In this guided, three mile walk (with views of Stonehenge) participants will visit some of the ancient earthworks that have revealed much about the people who once lived or visited the area. Other points of interest will include the Stonehenge Cursus, the many and varied barrows in the area, and an ancient Avenue that perhaps once connected ceremonial centres.

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The Prime Minister has just said the Government is “committed” to ending the traffic nightmare on the A303 between Devon and London. Everyone will welcome that (although even the preliminary study isn’t going to be produced before the next election). But from the point of view of prehistory fans the big issue that springs to mind is what will it mean for Stonehenge? There are three big reasons for concern:

1. For years English Heritage supported putting the A303 at Stonehenge in a massively damaging cut-and-cover tunnel.

2. Then, they supported a bored “short tunnel” despite the opposition of UNESCO and nearly all archaeological and heritage organisations on the grounds it too was very damaging.

3. It was cancelled due to cost but just last month Simon Thurley said they’d continue to argue for the tunnel, “with all our strength”.

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It was perhaps the most bizarre request for extras issued in the West for a while – skinny men and women were required who had the look of the Neolithic about them.

That meant “lean or athletic-framed” men and women who might have been just about fit enough to pull a huge lump of rock from west Wales to Salisbury Plain.

Filming has continued this week on a multi-national new TV series which sets out to be the definitive docu-drama about the building and use of Stonehenge ever made.

The BBC has joined forces with TV channels in the US, Canada, France, Austria, Germany and more to commission Stonehenge Empire, an epic documentary telling the story of the West’s most famous landmark.

And that means as well as discovering the latest from the so far ten-year project investigating the stones, re-enactments of the days when Neolithic people dragged the huge stones to the final spot near Amesbury are included.

So actors and jobbing extras across the West were summoned to be the Neolithic people.

And being in the background requires a certain look.

“They would have been Caucasian and fairly classic looking,” a spokesman for the extras agency said and added “Character faces are also good.”

Females had long hair with a natural tone, while males needed to be either bald, semi-bald with long hair at the back, or have longish hair.

“Beards are also beneficial,” the notice said.

Some actors went further than others in the pursuit of the perfect recreation of the world of the henge builders. Lee Ravitz, an actor from Hertfordshire, played a “trepanning patient” in the docu-drama – which involved pretending to have a hole drilled in his skull.

The film will be screened over two, one-hour-long episodes and will change the way we look at Stonehenge, according to the creative director from film company October, Adam Bullmore.

“Stonehenge Empire will dramatically change the way we understand Stonehenge and the prehistoric culture that flourished around it,” he said. “Instead of seeing Stonehenge as an extraordinary achievement of an otherwise relatively primitive, prehistoric people, it will reveal Stonehenge as the epicentre of a truly remarkable and highly sophisticated ancient civilisation.”

The BBC are excited by the prospect of the film, which could be screened later this year, and uses CGI to recreate the vast scenes of thousands working on the stones.

Martin Davidson, BBC commissioner, said: “This is a really exciting project which will, using drama, CGI and the latest archaeological discoveries, allow us to properly understand the achievements and character of the people that built it; people who mastered deep mining and sophisticated engineering.”

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Stonehenge Stone Circle

Mystery surrounds this 5,000 year old monument in the centre of the World Heritage Site. Visit this prehistoric South West site near Salisbury in Wiltshire, and decide for yourself whether Stonehenge was a place of sun worship, a healing sanctuary, a sacred burial site, or something different altogether!

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